A photographic and filmic dexterity finding its nucleus in real life experience. Candid portraits that remain in cognitive thought. A stylistic virtue that comes across as haphazard play.
Tyler Mitchell is a filmmaker and photographer from Atlanta currently based in Brooklyn, New York. A recent film graduate from NYU, his venture into photography was prompted by a skater friend’s introduction to a Canon 7D.
With his work coming full circle his lens has been graced by the presence of Jaden Smith and Kevin Abstract. Collaborating with Abstract has quickly set him apart as a filmmaker to watch. Filming the rapper with pink hair in a brooding gaze, Tyler used an underground club as the backdrop for ‘Hell/Heroina‘ released in 2014 and made a satirical music video titled ‘Dirt‘ for Brockhampton that was led by Abstract.
A career-defining moment in the young creative’s life was the release of his photography book, El Paquete (his first self-published book). In Havana, Cuba, Tyler aimed to remove himself from that which is familiar to him. The end product of the 30 rolls of film used and developed is an arresting body of work taking the shape of a publication. Within its pages is reflected the raw energy and youth of an area on the verge of digital advancement. El Paquete gained traction from publications such as Dazed and i-D and quickly skyrocketed the young talent’s photographic work, cementing him as a prominent creative within the photographic landscape. Since then, Tyler has exhibited at the 2018 Aperture Summer Open in New York.
Tyler’s work reflects rawness and honesty. His practice cannot be boxed into a specific set of aesthetic values as he plays with both shadow and shadow-less representations, saturated and desaturated stylings. What remains true in his work is its candid, easy-going nature that wraps around your mind as you see individuals depicted in intimate gazes and pensive thought. The young creative’s craft is advanced and his career is soaring at a considerably young age and seeing where his work takes him next will be a blast I’m sure.
UK photographer Angela Dennis teamed up with dancer and choreographer Llewelyn Mnguni, the result of which is a series of images that aim to visually represent their lived understandings of gender and sexuality as a spectrum. Zoo Lake was their chosen location, attracted to the vibrant colours that were brought to the basketball courts near the lake by local artists.
Their collaboration became a moment of exchange and a moment of solidarity, sharing more than just the sound of the shutter and angelic poses. Angela and Llewelyn shared with one another their experiences as queer people of colour, coming from different sides of the world. This intimacy comes across in Llewelyn’s openness in the images, and Angela’s treatment of each image.
For Angela, photography offers an avenue for identity exploration, focusing particularly on the “black body, black aesthetics and queer identities – that of my own and those I encounter.” She does this by presenting the every day, the intimate, individual self-care practices, style, social groups and home life. “My general approach has been an attempt to subvert beauty standards in the west that favour whiteness by producing work that celebrates and beautifies black people, as well as work that looks for visual signifiers of common cultural practices,” Angela adds.
Angela’s interest in Johannesburg sparked from attending AFROPUNK in the city in December. Curious about the possibilities the festival offers for black transnational exchange, Angela met a number of creatives, including Llewelyn while staying in Johannesburg, and was keen to accelerate the momentum of creative engagement.
As a dancer and choreographer working for Dance Factory, Llewelyn uses this medium as a way to share the untold stories of the LGBTI+ community, “because I find that in dance there is a lack of representation for the stories and lives of this community.”
Reflecting on the series, Llewelyn states that, “As a black queer artist I think it is imperative to capture moments of one’s existence in the social climate we find ourselves in. Self representation, self love and pride are what these photos should inspire and evoke. It is also important to me to continue to document our lives as this inspires generations to come.”
This process was not simply about Angela taking photographs of Llewelyn, but a partnership of making images, a kind of co-creation that mixed together their exploration of identity.
Continuing Llewelyn’s train of thought, Angela concluded by offering this reflection, “Being queer I am part of a community that resides in a liminal space on the margins of society, something Llewellyn and I can identify with. Our work here, in its various mediums seems to generally be about understanding the communal spaces we reside in and forging new connections. Blackness itself encompasses a multitude of experiences, politics and cultural production globally. And as we continue to rise and take up space, it is imperative that we keep fostering this learning and understanding, so that as authors we create ourselves from a position of strength. I think this translates in the images through the grace and strength of Llewelyn’s free movement, he literally uses his body to take up public space. The bold colours in the court flooring become abstract flashes of colour and light, nodding to the ‘colour’ of queerness. Transnational exchange means strengthened collective power and an infinite network of peers to learn from, to lift up and celebrate.”
Lubabetu Abubakar aka Lubee Abubakar studied law, but has been making the transition to a full-time photographer and art director. With a focus on fashion, she illuminates the people she photographs with her delicate approach to capturing each image. She has been presented as one of the photographers bringing attention to her home country, Nigeria, with her participation in the 2017 LagosPhoto Festival.
With her transition to a full-time creative practice Abubakar allows herself to experiment while finding a way to create a signature in her imagery. She plays with colour in bold, and sometimes subtle ways, forming a visual language that draws the viewer in and engenders a curiosity around the people in her photographs. The models in her images often have an intense engagement with the camera, looking directly and confidently at the viewer. However, Abubakar softens this intensity, making their stares come across more inviting than intimidating.
One of Abubakar’s more personal projects, a series titled ‘Ojoro‘, explores themes related to womanhood and welcoming a woman into adulthood. This series is accompanied by a text that intimately expresses what a woman feels when on her period. The connection between the images and text shares with audiences an honesty and rawness that provokes emotive responses.
The presentation of her work online appears as a puzzle, with each photograph and gif on her home page pointing to different aspects of her work. Viewers can see commercial work alongside images that take on a more documentary style, showing a diversity of work.
Check out Abubakar website to keep up with her work.
Guinean-Swiss art director and photographer Namsa Leuba has a practice that combs through the representation of African identities as they are interpreted within the western imagination, highlighting the mechanisms of this imaginary’s construction and its problematic enforcement as a sign of universality. This reflection as the foundation of her practice comes from her double heritage, noting that she has spent most of her life in Switzerland which had a large influence on how she sees the world.
Leuba’s imagery taps into the symbols that make up her cultural heritage, from rituals and ceremonies to monuments and outfits. Her work takes on an anthropological nature, but flips the discipline and its connection to imagery on its head by removing objectification, racial probing and the framing of subject matter as occupying anachronistic space from her photographic approach. Her questioning of dualisms (such as the relationship between the sacred and profane, fact and fiction), and her mixing of cultural practices and symbolisms assist in her ability to elegantly, intimately and carefully present people from the continent. However, she is always aware that her work is from her own point of view.
Her latest series, Weke, disputes the western view on African traditional religions. This series captures the voodoo and animist practices in Benin. Living in Benin for two and a half months, she took on the method of participant observation, taking part in different rituals to get first-hand experience of the people and the world she planned to photograph. This research method created depth in her final images, allowing her to highlight the invisible which makes up so much of this religion and framework for viewing the world. There is a kind of trippy, surrealist element to the way in which these images are presented, drawing the viewer closer, cultivating a sense of curiosity and appreciation.
A cocoon of carefully interwoven fabric. Shoes, scarves, shirts, pants, skirts, jackets – every item of clothing a person owns morphed to make a human-sized sculpture. Why is that? Because there is a human being inside this heap of clothing.
Canadian photographer Libby Oliver is spellbound by the power that clothing has to simultaneously reveal and veil human identity and desire. Soft Shells is a visual exploration of this susceptibility to portray our personalities through dress and at the same time to use wardrobe to hide our insecurities from the world.
To create this body of work Libby buried her subjects in every item of clothing that they own. At first glance, the viewer might perceive these cloth sculptures as laundry heaps. Upon closer inspection, however, the viewer will be able to identify small sections of human flesh in the form of foreheads, hands and peeping eyes escaping from the binding clothing stacks of scarves, pants and blouses.
In her artist’s statement, Libby expresses “This work arises from my interest in artificiality, visual power relationships and indexing a person through their belongings. Through this series, I aim to explore the tension point between a person’s curated individuality and my personal manipulation of their aesthetic. Soft Shells speaks of human vulnerability, trust, power and control relations of visual interpretation.”
Libby aspires to travel with her ongoing project to various locations in order to broaden the representation of identities, cultures and clothing. For more of her work check out her Instagram.
Bodies inhabiting strong poses and near confrontational gazes. The sun creeping behind a model’s head, low angles, lengthened bodies. Glare as a stylistic device. Welcome to the sexy future crafted by one of Cape Town’s own fashion image auteurs.
Sivan Miller is a South African-born photographer from Cape Town who currently lives in and travels for work from New York. Growing up around Sea Point and Camps Bay he was inspired by his surroundings and started his photographic documentation of the area from the age of 16 as a hobbyist. Frequently skating about Cape Town, Sivan was endlessly influenced by new scenery that he would discover and later return to for the purpose of image creation. With no particular interest in doing photography professionally, he initially channelled his energies towards 3D Animation and VFX after school, aspiring to work in technology and art.
The self-taught photographer has come a long way since his early landscape images of Camps Bay and has been practising as an international fashion photographer for the past 12 years.
At the age of 16, Sivan was discovered by Oprah Winfrey with a photograph he took of Camps Bay and uploaded onto a free photo website. He explains that he believes this chance occurrence happened since Oprah has a school in South Africa and she was looking for images of the country. Oprah got in contact with Sivan and he received payment for the use of the image.
“It had no influence on my career in the fact that no one booked me anymore or any less because of this. It was more a serious motivation for myself, that led me to carry on. If it was good enough for Oprah, then I was good enough to continue on this path, I would tell myself.”
Sivan justifies his move from landscape work to fashion photography as one that arose due to the necessity of having to maintain a sustainable income. Describing his photographic style as futuristic with an editorial feel, Sivan states that emotion in his images and a connection with the people he photographs is key to his practice. Often shooting from low angles facing up towards the model, Sivan believes that shooting models from below bestows a sense that they are majestic.
The inspiration for a shoot is frequently sought from the clothing that will be photographed. “My ideas come from the garments I see. I love clothing and new style. I strive to create new work the whole time.”
Sivan started his career photographing new faces that have now levitated to top faces, such as Jaden Smith, Jocete Coote, Gigi Hadid and Maria Borgers. His ever-growing client list includes New York Fashion Week, Puma, The Oscars, The Grammy Awards, Mercedes Benz, ZARA Clothing, Vida E Caffe, Tashkaya, Soul Candy Records, VISI Magazine, MOT / Zone Models London, Karl Lagerfeld and Jockey SA, to name a few.
Sivan shares that his journey to becoming the accomplished photographer he is today came with incessant hard work, shooting for 12 years. He hopes to act as an inspiration for other photographers in realizing their own dreams and potential.
Sivan’s work is technically sound with composition and location choice strengthening the power of his images, as well as emphasizing the majestic and strong essence that is evoked by the models he photographs. Acting as an example of a photographer with no formal training Sivan worked hard to earn his merits and occupy the space he does in the industry today. His excellence should be a motivator for all photographers who dream of a similar future – it can be done clearly.
Vividly coloured wardrobe hugs the bodies of models, embracing static, powerful poses. And it is as if the viewer is looking at non-human entities, statues or mannequins perhaps – artworks in their own right. But the 23-year old image maker from New York pushes her already existent art pieces into another medium by photographing her human “colour statues”/ “creatures”.
Moving to South Carolina for high school, Arielle was soon overcome with a depression that lasted for five years. Her release came by chance in the form of a placement in a digital imagery class the high school offered where she was introduced to the various aspects of photography. It is here where Arielle found a form of cathartic release that helped her in her battle against depression.
“…when it comes to photography I’m always looking for photos that make me ask why? Or how?” Arielle prefers to see the subject of her image as a shape. She then takes this shape and forms it to become a part of a larger composition, straying away from the face as a focal point in her work. She expresses in an interview with Its Nice That, that colour is central to her practice as her life was characterized by its absence for a long time. Experimenting with colour is her expression and acceptance of the playfulness she currently experiences in life.
From the conceptualization of a project to its execution and completion, Arielle is open to let her imagination and chance take the steering wheel. Often starting her process by seeking inspiration, she hunts in thrift stores and drives around to find fabrics and landscapes that captivate her mood at that time. The poses her models inhabit generally take place in an improvisational manner and she expresses that the outcome of her work is not always what she expected, but that she embraces it fully.
Photography is a powerful tool that can be used as a therapeutic medium. Arielle’s work which combines brilliant colours and intriguing poses convey a sense of euphoria. The power and psychological impact of colour is displayed in her work. Art for therapy is a beautiful personal experience that can help others realize their own abilities to use artistic mediums for self-love.
“I want my voice to be harsh, I don’t want it to be beautiful, I don’t want it to be pure.” – Frantz Fanon
* The foundation for this writing was gathered from the writings of George Yancy in his book Black Bodies, White Gazes – The continuing significance of race published in 2008
So what am I, a white womxn, doing writing an article on the white gaze when I am not victim to being viewed by the gaze? The answer to this is because it is my attempt to emphasize the importance of this topic to not just people of colour but to white people; to all people. We need to be aware of what it means to be white, what makes a white person “whitely”. (Yancy, 2008: unknown page) and why the white gaze is still prevalent in an apparently liberated society. A person, a body’s sense of identity, imagined community and emphatic identifications is realigned by anti-black racism, according to Linda Martin Alcoff. This article then is a hope towards a more inclusive society, a more woke society even in a “post-apartheid” culture.
In order to unpack the white gaze in a South African context I will look at the photographic work of Alice Mann, Kyle Weeks and Alexia Webster. I am by no means stating that the white gaze is something that is exclusionary to the photographer’s discussed here, they merely serve as examples to aid in a difficult conversation.
Objectifying Black bodies brings to light issues of Black invisibility and hypervisibility as methods of the erasure of the integrity of Black bodies. “The black body is deemed the quintessential object of the ethnographic gaze, the ‘strange’ exotic, and fascinating object of anthropology.” With anthropology, a comradeship was formed with the photographer – anthropologist and photographer worked in unison to document the “strange exotic”.
The apparent social and political emancipation of people of colour that came about through the end of apartheid is bursting at the seams with the narratives of people of colour still frequently lensed by whites that perform their whiteliness through acting out the white gaze.
Employing moral distancing, many white people attain moral superiority over “white racists”. They obscure their own racism by refuting only a specific form of racism thereby creating cavernous self-deception. Hereby is meant that many white people are not self-reflexive enough and only see extremist white supremacy as racist acts while racism gapes far wider than this selected group.
“The white gaze, given the power of the ocular metaphor in Western culture, is an important site of power and control, a site that is structured by white epistemic orders and that perpetuates such orders in turn.” (Yancy, 2008: unknown page) Here is where my argument lies, not in the ocular as a metaphor, but as a definitive object that objectifies in the hands and with the eyes of many a white photographer – something that has been happening since the invention of the camera and still endures.
White people inherited the privilege of being “lookers”, gazers and the power that comes with this state of being. White people assumed the right to appoint Black bodies as they pleased. White hubris then arrogantly takes it upon itself to define the “reality” of people of colour in categorical terms, conditions, stipulations and appellations that are based on white privilege and power.
Veiling their own whiteness, hiding behind their cameras, commodifying from one-dimensional views of Blackness, many white photographers have assisted in creating and maintaining distorted conceptions of Blackness.
This can be seen in series’ such as Alice Mann’s Domestic Bliss (2014) which was met with public onslaught. The series depicted domestic workers dressed in uniform in the wealthy homes of their employers, not performing their daily tasks working for those homes, but instead in reclining poses on sofas and neatly made beds. They look uncomfortable, most of the time, sometimes even confrontational in their gaze. By creating a juxtaposed scene, that of the helpers in their uniforms on the one hand, and the luxury that surrounds them in their working situations on the other, the idea of an apparent “post” apartheid society is easily questionable. Against abundance and wealth, these women stand out as “other”.
The white gaze continues into her photo essay Drum majorettes of Cape Town that focused on young primary school girls. They are seemingly unaware of how she is firstly, invasive, turning her lens on their family homes, their intimate spaces and changing their lives into a curiosity cabinet, a spectacle for people from all over the world to visually explore. And by extension, she makes their real-life experiences a commodity.
It might not be as visible in the Drum majorettes photo essay, but in Domestic Bliss it is almost all that stands out. The reason why I say this is because there cannot be anything more problematic than a white employer photographing her and her friends’ domestic workers to start off with. What’s more is that even though the helpers have consented to have these portraits taken of them, one can question how much choice they really had to reject this request.
These bodies of work speak of her subjectivity that she attempts to paint as ambiguity more than anything else. The mystery in Mann’s work lies in what they are suggesting about how her consensual models felt after she had photographed them (Sontag 1977: pg. 28). How did the woman and girls feel after they saw the portrayal of themselves in Mann’s eyes? Did they see themselves that way?
The white gaze is not something that can be spoken about impartially if only one white person’s work is being taken into account for such a discourse. Therefore, I next look at the work of Kyle Weeks. Weeks, born in Namibia, is known for his work that strikes the balance between portraiture and documentary depictions.
The problematic nature of his work lies in the “Asymmetrical power relations between whites and Blacks and the historical expansionist tendencies on the part of whites, and how they make themselves at home even when uninvited.” (Yancy, 2008: unknown page) This is again something that can be drawn to all three of the white photographers discussed in this piece. I am by no means stating that the white gaze is something that is exclusionary to the photographer’s discussed here, they merely serve as examples to aid in a difficult conversation.
Weeks’ series, Palm Wine Collectors, visually explores the working lives and dynamics of the Makalani palm harvesters of northern Namibia in the Kunene Region. According to Week’s biography, this series offers, “a subversive alternative to voyeuristic documentary stylings.” Another body of work that can be put in the same category as the first is his portrait series, Ovahimba Youth Self-Portraits – a body of work that acts as a visual commentary on the longstanding colonial photographic methods used to depict Africans.”
My critique is the gaze of course but more than this the way in which these series’ are described by the visual auteur, and as Yancy states, the non-existent invitation that white people give themselves to lens the narratives of people of colour. To infiltrate their spaces without hesitation and to write narratives for people of colour however they deem fit.
Firstly, Weeks presents his Palm Wine Collectors series as a body of work that is progressive, as an alternative to voyeuristic documentary depictions. In my opinion, this body of work does not reflect objectivities and instead tells us more about Weeks as was the case with Mann. Both of Weeks’ bodies of work discussed here speak of subjectivities.
Ovahimba Youth Self-Portraits is aimed at subverting colonial photographic methods used to depict African people, and again by definition fails in this attempt and always will when lensed by a white individual who cannot acknowledge the effect of their whiteness. Weeks’ whiteness goes unnamed in his work.
The voices of racists declare themselves to be raceless; hidden behind the veneer of white “progressive liberalism”. By many white people, racism is understood in terms of white supremacy and white extremism and they fail to see their own acts of micro racism as they believe that their liberalism lends them as raceless and blameless. The privileged status of normative “absence” is given to the white body.
Alexia Webster’s work cannot be seen apart from the scope of the performers of the white gaze. It can be seen in bodies of work such as The Spread of the South African Supermarket – Portraits of Zambian Shoppers. The photo essay tells the story of the rise of the South African supermarkets in Zambia by photographing shoppers of colour in the act of shopping in a Shoprite chain store. Given, this was an assignment by the Financial Times Weekend magazine I still believe that objectivity is not prevalent and that this is a subjective body of work.
As with Mann’s photographic work, this body of work feels extremely invasive. Webster photographs people in the relatively private act of shopping; shopping is private for me at least and I would not enjoy being lensed while buying my supply of fresh food and other necessities. It is the white person’s assumed right to insert themselves into narratives they don’t understand and then even more than that; to convey the narrative, however, they see fit.
“The production of the Black body is an effect of the discursive and epistemic structuring of white gazing and other white modes of anti-Black performance. And while these performances are not always enacted consciously but the result of years of white racism calcified and habituated within the bodily repertoire of whites, whites are not exempt from taking responsibility for the historical continuation of white racism.” (Yancy, 2008: unknown page)
White solipsism arranges the world as a white space where “whiteness” is seen as a normal and universal condition. All three of the photographers discussed above fail to employ self-reflexivity with regard to how they positioned themselves as white photographers or how the ideology of whiteness positions them as “race-free”. Their apparent documentary work is simply an act of performing whiteness. What reinforces the status of whiteness is to allow it the power to go unnamed and to accept its status as a natural site of the human condition, thereby stripping people of colour of their humanity. Racialized meaning is re-established through silence.
“Becoming white” is different from being “phenotypically white” (Yancy, 2008: unknown page. Becoming white” then, is an additional layer or classification and refers to more than phenotypic markers. As Marilyn Frye states, being “whitely” is a deeply embedded way of being in the world (Frye, as sited in Yancy, 2008). Whiteness is performing both the phenotypic as well as a subjectivity that is structured by particular white epistemic orientations. Whiteness relates to one’s position in a white racist social structure that grants privilege.
In no way do the above statements negate that white people have different investments in whiteness, nor that there are white people who participate in antiracist forms of praxis. Despite this, however, white people continue to benefit from being phenotypically white irrespective of good intentions. White South Africans reap benefits from a previous hegemonic structure of hate built on white supremacy. I do not deny that white people have privilege by racism while are targets of classism, sexism, homophobia or ageism. I also do not deny that white people are beneficiaries of whiteness in different ways.
“In the process of naming their whiteness, whites must understand their role in a normalizing whiteness and also understand how whiteness is a site that is dutifully maintained.” (Yancy, 2008: unknown page) In the examples of the photographers mentioned leaving their whiteness unnamed and unidentified, has the effect of interposing Blackness as marked and the “real” object of their gaze. Whiteness, however, maintained its unmarked status and provided them with the latitude to create distance between themselves and white racists.
It is important for all people to understand the white gaze. To identify it, to confront it. White people need to be more self-reflexive of the way they are in the world and realize that racism isn’t something that is singular to white extremists but that small acts can as easily be a performance of the white gaze. White people need to stop inserting themselves into narratives that they do not belong in and make way for people of colour to tell their own stories. True objectivity is unattainable, especially with a camera.
“Critical reflections on whiteness should not begin and end with critical reflections on white supremacy. What is important is that the critical project of making seen the unseen of white privilege in mundane contexts is a significant endeavour that transcends unambiguous cases of white supremacy.” (Yancy, 2008: unknown page)
Traditional framing broken and carefully pieced together. The cutting off of feet in a frame, blowing them up and lending them their own image – making them carry their own worth. Soft hazy, dreamlike images are painted. Jarred Figgins strikes the balance between careful contemplation and haphazard play with his photographic work. With images that often hiss oddities, it must be understood that they are thoughtfully constructed in a simple matter-of-fact way.
The South African photographer has in recent times become increasingly involved in the art of the moving image. Spending his formative years in Johannesburg, he relocated to Cape Town at the age of 18. Theoretical knowledge in the field was built up during the years he spent studying. Reflecting on his craft and childhood, Jarred explains that his desire to create images that were non-conformist was aroused from a need to splinter conventionality.
Questioning the label of fashion photographer that can easily be latched on to him, Jarred tells me that what sets you apart in a world of fast content consumption is the ability to approach the same subject matter in a slightly different way and a determination to stay ahead of the pack.
Discussing his interest in film Jarred states, “I think that film really allows you to manoeuvre an idea in a specific direction that a still sometimes lacks. It’s like being able to grow an idea so much more which so quickly takes shape or exerts a feeling without much effort…” His short film pieces come across as an experimental, visual ode, keeping its refinement in its technicality and precision.
He pinpoints his stylistic edge as something that often times takes place in post-production. “I’m not necessarily doing anything different with photography or composition, it’s just something I perhaps find fun or alarming whilst editing.”
About his process and tendency to work on set, Jarred tells me that careful planning does not always play out the way it is anticipated on set. He emphasises that for him a fine balance needs to be struck between playing by the rule book and letting the shoot take its natural course.
A great deal of his work for a shoot happens in pre and post production. The pre-production work could be seen as the most taxing, perhaps, as Jarred frequently builds his own sets and regards his curated playlists for shoots to be an integral part of his creative process. His photographic work is seen by him as a vehicle that allows him to express what he wants to the world.
Jarred’s work both moving and still are trademarked by his stylistic choices that sets him apart. His play with lighting and colour that results in dreamlike painterly images elevates the concepts of his work. His unusual way of piecing together various images and fragments of images into wholly different layouts creates peculiarity and beauty – the beauty in peculiarity.
adidas Originals have released a brand-new silhouette for 2018, the second drop of Prophere. To support its launch adidas Originals commissioned art director, photographer and stylist, Gabrielle Kannemeyer to create a lookbook.
Gabrielle captured some of her friends and collaborators who are multidisciplinary practitioners. The lookbook features Da Da Shiva, Luh’ra, Siya Andi Biyela, Chester Martinez and Tatenda Wekwatenzi; individuals that resonate with the fierceness of the Prophere silhouette and message.
Gabrielle wanted to take photographs in a town where she grew up feeling quite isolated. Set in areas from Killarney Gardens to Somerset West, the aim for the shoot was the disruption of suburbia. Flames and colourful smoke took over as they navigated these spaces and made them, “our turf”.
“Our Turf is a mindset we take with us wherever we go – a space that enables us to be 100% unapologetic about being who we are. A new generation is at the helm of a march into the future, our turf is boundless and infinite – anything we imagine to be, is.”
Diluted tones, traditional composition married to the monumentalizing of subject matter. Human and non-human. This acts as a description of Dune Tilley’s work; Cape Town’s rising star photographer. The now 18-year-old image creator has made his mark with images that consume you. Images that pull you closer and beg you to question “Who are the people in these images? What are they like?” or “Where is this amazing building?”.
His interest in documenting the world began at a very young age. As is the case with many photographers today, it is difficult to label Dune’s specialty. His work extends over the disciplines of documentary, portraiture and fashion photography.
With an emphasis placed on capturing his subject matter’s (human or not) soul he seeks out to document the feelings he observes around his subjects. His style has shifted since the first time I saw his presence online two years ago – a natural happening for a young creative in any medium. What stays is a rather peculiar objectiveness in his images. A frankness which can be attributed to his aim at making his images genuine, and project integrity onto his sitters.
“I think there is beauty in both well thought out, staged, conceptual photographs and spontaneous photographs on the street. It all depends on your intention and your reason for taking that picture in the first place. The most effective way to capture great images, in my opinion, is just to constantly have a camera on you…” he states in an interview with DEAD TOWN Zine.
Dune’s style is one that can be summed up as beautiful frankness with immense sensitivity. I look forward to witnessing his growth into an even greater and skilled photographer than he already encompasses.
Summing up everything that Elijah Ndoumbé encompasses is no easy task. The magnitude of their brilliance is enthralling and their approach is delicately interrogatory and essentially decolonial. Calling Elijah an artist is a fitting label but really Elijah is gifted & accountable to the need of expressing themselves and members of their community through various channels.
Born to a French father with Cameroonian roots, Elijah’s father was considered métis in the country where Elijah was born and initially racialised, Paris, France. The term métis suggests “racial impurity” due to being part European and part African, Africa being considered inferior. There was no conversation about Elijah’s father’s Blackness. The only time Elijah would indulge in their ancestry would be through the traditional meals their Cameroonian grandmother prepared. Elijah later moved to the West coast of America, where Elijah’s white mother is from.
Elijah’s ballet classes in suburban America subtly posed questions about their race and gender. Ballet class was filled with slender, white girls with perfectly arched feet and Elijah had a more prominent ass, darker skin and flat feet.
“The thing about ballet is that it is a form of dance that relies on a particular and biased body type…this experience of art was very fucking gendered and very racialised and I didn’t realise it at the time because of the context of the space that I was raised in…I don’t want to be the only weirdo in the room, I want to feel seen. When you feel desperately isolated and alone because you know something is different about you and there is shame attached to that, like throughout my childhood, there was shame attached to the desire I have and the ways in which it would show up in my life or the ways I would respond.”
Elijah’s becoming was profoundly jolted during their time at Stanford University where they were “severely politicised.” Studying “Power” and “History” within the context of their bachelors in African & African American Studies and Feminist, Gender & Sexuality Studies intensely informed Elijah about the dynamics of the violent histories that riddle their body, their family’s bodies, and the bodies of members of their community. Subsequently, this questioning of embodiment has nuanced Elijah’s work. “It’s actually quite a decolonial way of thinking – to burst out of the frameworks and to imagine what it looks like for us to build our own while simultaneously infiltrating the ones that exist…I’m a non-binary trans person, who has body dysphoria, also regardless of my complexion, I’m also Black, I’m a person of colour, I’m of African decent; I carry these things in the end. I carry a multitude of things and those things are going to show up in all spaces.”
Initially through the pen, Elijah struggled with this questioning in the form of written pieces that require prolonged simmering in love and care. Elijah was then captivated by expressing themselves through a camera lens and with inspiration and guidance from BBZ London based cultural consultant and video artist, Nadine Davis, Elijah began poetically capturing themselves and members of their community through photography and videography in various personal and global contexts.
Now based in Cape Town, South Africa, Elijah has captured the emotionally intense experiences of Trans womxn who experience a lot of casual violence, through their work with the Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT) in a video called SISTAAZHOOD: Conversations on Violence. There are also a couple of photoseries’ accessible on Elijah’s website. The prominence of visual work attributes to the attention paid to this creative outlet but there are infinite ways for Elijah to exist.
More recently, Elijah has had the privilege of “doing the work of making space to think”, this time has been an incubation period, in which Elijah has played with other mediums. For example humbly picking up a pen to doodle with some Miles Davis in the background and a “fuck it” mentality. Elijah’s exploration of themselves as an illustrator stems from their desire to be free from operating in fear, especially through a medium that will potentially fuel their other creative expressions. Furthermore, Elijah wishes to deconstruct the notion that only formal training like “art school” certifies one as an “artist” and the labelling of their creation’s as “art”.
Elijah has also been gravitating to the creative medium they first formally explored, dance. Complimentary to these embodied movements that resemble freedom and release are Elijah’s well versed music mixes, which could blare through the speakers of events like the Queer Salon. Created by Elijah and facilitated with a Black & Brown Queer DJ duo, Nodiggity, the Queer Salon makes space for Queer, Trans and non-binary Black, Brown and indigenous people of colour to be prioritised through art. While lamenting with me over experiences on dancefloors in Berlin and public restroom lines in Johannesburg, Elijah accentuated their urgency to continue building and facilitating safe and sustainable community spaces.
Elijah’s current phase of rest has revealed a beauty of the unknown to them and reinforced that despite daily negotiation of their textured identity, their artistry will always be an unyielding, irrefutable and indispensable embodiment of them and theirs.